


Shoulder to cry on

by basaltgrrl



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 09:40:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17098181
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basaltgrrl/pseuds/basaltgrrl
Summary: What if Annie got hurt and Sam wasn't there to comfort her?





	Shoulder to cry on

It wasn’t the walls that bothered her so much. She decided that, after thirty minutes of staring at them, reading and rereading the words on the posters. The warnings. The words of guidance. She looked away, looked down at her shoes, and couldn’t remember what the posters said. That was hard; that everything in the room seemed so far away.

A nurse called someone’s name. A figure shuffled past; Annie cringed as the man’s coat brushed her arm.

A hand touched her elbow, feather light.

“Alright?” Ray’s voice was quieter than usual. Soft, hesitant.

“Yeah.” She rubbed her stinging palms across her scraped knees and once again tried to distract herself. There were other pains. She didn’t want to think—

“We got there as fast as we could, Cartwright,” Ray murmured.

“I know,” she said.

Her mum had always been afraid of this. “Putting yourself in harms way, you are. Girls aren’t meant to be police officers! You’re not strong enough! What might they do to you, the bad men out there—“

The bad man. She hadn’t been strong enough. He had overpowered her with nothing but his bulk. Huge and stinking and she couldn’t even draw breath to scream, pinned to the pavement like that, and when he shoved a hand up between her legs she twisted and almost threw him off. She had felt so alone for those endless moments, even though she knew her partner was not far off. Just her and Henderson writhing on top of her like some demented animal, panting hoarsely in her ear, “Know you want it, you bitch—“

“Did the bastard, y’know… Cartwright?” Ray put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you crying?”

“He didn’t,” she whispered. “I’m fine.”

He hadn’t. And she was fine. But the tears had found a way out, now, and there didn’t seem to be a way of stopping them. She checked her pockets for a tissue, the lights blurring and winking through her tears.

Ray caught her hand, pressed a handkerchief into it. She blew her nose, extensively, and examined the streaks of blood left behind. Her face was still numb from impact with the ground. It had happened so fast…

Ray’s arm slipped around her shoulder, pulled her a little closer. “It’ll be OK, Cartwright,” he soothed. “Know the feeling. You’ll be right in a day or two. Nothing’s broken. They’ve just got to check you, make sure you’re OK.”

She let her cheek rest against the lapel of his jacket. Her eyes hurt. She couldn’t stop crying. It felt better, though, being with someone. He was there, was really there in a way that everything else wasn’t. Solid and warm and offering just enough. There really wasn’t anything broken. She told herself that, again.

“Tyler’ll be here soon as he can. Phyllis passed the word.”

She nodded. Sometime soon she’d have to try to pull herself together. Talk to a doctor, tell him what had happened. Sometime soon she’d be able to. In the near future she’d figure out how to be a detective constable again. But for now she absorbed his presence and his lack of judgment and took it into herself and made it hers. Sam would be all fury and desperation to help, all seething energy. She knew he’d say the right things. But—it would be easier to deal with that, to accept that from him after she’d had a good night’s sleep.

She heaved a breath, leaned a little harder into Ray’s shoulder. He gripped her shoulder a little tighter.

“You’ll be fine, Cartwright.”

“Yeah, I will.”


End file.
